AWS invests $4 billion in Anthropic in move to improve Amazon Bedrock
AWS plans to invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, a startup focused on generative AI. This is a strategic partnership intended to improve the Bedrock service, which lets customers access generative AI models through Anthropic.
According to the agreement between the two companies, AWS users will get early access to fine-tuning and customization features.
Anthropic will use AWS computing power and their Trainium and Inferentia chips to develop better models. On the other hand, AWS developers will use Anthropic's models in their own projects.
Amazon says that collaboration will enable staff to use generative AI capabilities to improve current applications and create new experiences for customers.
AWS will inject an initial investment of $1.25 billion, and later on expand the funding to an additional $2.75 billion.
This deal is part of a bigger push by AWS into generative AI. Bedrock launched earlier this year as an alternative to models from Google and Microsoft.
According to AWS CEO Andy Jassy, the collaboration will bring new exciting innovations to customers, and already, anthropic models have already seen high demand on Bedrock. Jassy said the new managed service will allow businesses to build AI applications and get more value.
On his part, Dario Amodei, the Anthropic CEO, and co-founder, said the collaboration stems from an existing relationship with Amazon. He was quick to note a significant interest in Anthropic models through the collaboration.
“Since announcing our support of Amazon Bedrock in April, Claude has seen significant organic adoption from AWS customers.”
Amodei believes the expanded partnership will unlock new opportunities for businesses as they use AWS’s cloud technology and Anthropic’s AI systems.
Anthropic will now use AWS for its key workloads. This access to advanced cloud technology will aid the startup's model research and future developments.
The $4 billion investment is the largest yet by AWS in generative AI. It tops the $300 million Google gave Anthropic last year.
While funding in the space has soared since ChatGPT launched, AWS aims to compete with Microsoft's $10 billion funding for OpenAI.
